Program Director/Principal Investigator (Last, First, Middle): PD: Pascual, V. / PI: Punaro, M. CLINICAL & SAMPLE CORE Project Summary The proposed Center for Lupus Research will take advantage of a wide range of technologies that will be applied to monitor molecular pathways driving disease activity in patients toward the ultimate goal of a personalized approach to therapy. Cumulative efforts from this project will generate an invaluable sample repository as a resource both for the proposed studies and future experimental questions. Thus, the necessary and important mission of the Clinical and Sample Core is to insure that all patients will have a comprehensive clinical assessment and that patient samples and clinical data will be systematically catalogued and tracked, adequately stored, and appropriately disseminated. The Clinical Component of this Core will arise from the Division of Pediatric Rheumatology at UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) and take advantage of the availability of samples from well-characterized pediatric SLE patients, who manifest disease early in life, often present extreme phenotypes and lack co-morbidities that confound the phenotypes. Blood samples obtained via this Clinical Component will serve as the source of pediatric patient samples for the entire proposed Center for Lupus Research. The aims of this component are: clinical diagnosis and assessment of flares and remission, patient enrollment, sample collection and regulatory oversight. The Core's Sample Component will be physically located at the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research (BIIR) will facilitate collection, and distribution of both comprehensive clinical and laboratory data and human subject biosamples. The aims of this component are: project initiation, sample acquisition, sample storage and sample distribution. The Clinical and Sample Core will build upon existing strengths and expand to coordinate sample and data acquisition, processing, storage, and distribution for this P50 grant proposal. The Core will capitalize on the long-standing collaboration between Drs. Punaro and Pascual and the outstanding manner in which they have historically and continue to liaise the clinic and the research laboratory. These strategies and strengths will enable scientists of the proposed Center for Lupus Research from different institutions to work together seamlessly and allowing investigators to track clinical and laboratory data associated with samples to ensure scientifically sound correlative studies and facilitate a truly synergistic program. PHS 398/2590 (Rev. 06/09) Page Continuation Format Page